e-mail of November 27

Hey Everyone Happy Thanksgiving even though it is the day after. To sum up my week, Thanksgiving here was awesome I wished I could have been home but it was amazing here also. At our Tuesday night devotional we had Elder Dallin H. Oaks come and speak to us and he gave us alot of pointers on how to be better missionaries and I loved it. Than on Thanksgiving day it was really nice we didn't have to go to class at all, we got to stay in our dorms and study. We had a morning devotional at 10 and Elder Jeffery R. Holland came and spoke to us. Well he didn't speak to us as I was hoping he would, but a couple of weeks ago they had the missionaries write down a question that they wanted to ask a general authority and then he answered some of those questions. It was still an excellent talk and I love the power of his testimony. Then we had a big thanksgiving lunch. They did serve us turkey and all the good stuff for thanks giving so it was awesome. After that we didn't have anything planned until after dinner where we made first aid kits for africa and that was fun. Then we had our evening devotional and that one was kind of weird. President Smith of the MTC spoke a little bit to us and than opened up the meeting to anyone who wanted to go up and say what they were thankful for. The reason that it was weird is because all of the missionaries that are really weird seemed to be the ones that were going up to the mic. There were some good ones that went up but mostly just the opposite. I did see Hannah right before the Tuesday night devo. and the Thursday morning one also. I got my packages thankyou so much for all of the cookies suckers and the Turkeys I have a Turkey farm in my room now on my wall. I took a picture of it and I will be sending home some pictures soon of my companion and I and my district and some other stuff too. I cant believe that Real Salt Lake won, that is so awesome I am so jealous that I didn't get to go but I will see plenty of soccer games once I get to Brazil. I really appreciate everything that all of you do for me and I am so thankful to have all of you as my family I would love more pictures for my walls and the food that you send me is always excellent and welcome. I love you all so much and I am keeping you all in my prayers. Eu sei que esse Evangelho e verdadiero, eu sei que Thomas S. Monson e um profeta, eu sei que as familias poder estar sempre, eu sei que o livro de Mormon e verdadiero, eu amo voces muito, eu digo esses coises em nome de Jesus Cristo Amem. Love Elder Crittenden

e-mail of November 20th.

Hey Everybody, I was really surprised to get on my email today and find out that there wasn't any new mail for me. How is everything going? Things here in the MTC are the same as usual, Lots of studying. Yesterday we had our TRC appointment and we had to talk for 15 minutes with an investigator in portugues/help him move. Our investigator had pictures of furniture sitting out on his coffee table and we had to pick up a picture and tell him what it was in portuguese and then walk it across the room to another chair. Then we asked him about his family and told him about ours and then we taught him how to pray in portuguese. After that we went back and taught him the plan of salvation in English. We taught a great lesson but the guy was a little bit older and in the teaching record he was supposed to tell us that he had some questions about the word of wisdom and then we were supposed to teach him and challenge him to follow the word of wisdom, but when we asked him aobut church he said that he learned about Joseph Smith and him being in Carthage Jail so, my companion and I had to change up our strategy a little bit but it worked out. I am excited to go to the Refferal center tomorrow, I went to the RC this last Sunday and I didn't talk to anyone on the phone but I got two chats. The first one was a lady needing some financial assistance and she was an inactive member and needed to talk to her Bishop, so I told her about lds.org and the find a church house thing and that seemed to be all that she needed because she got off after that. But the second lady was awesome she was asking me about God and she wanted to know more and I was teaching her but then when the conversation was getting good I had to go to the temple it was our temple time so I had to transfer her to someone else, but I did send the missionaries to her house. I was excited about that, I think that I will go again on this Sunday. Something else that is happening this week, as of yesterday we are no longer allowed to speak english in the class. Our teachers are only going to be speaking Portuguese so that is all that we are allowed to speak, so it should be exciting the next 4 weeks. I haven't heard anything on our visas yet but I will definitely be here for 9 weeks and then I may go stateside for a little while unless they come. So please pray for them. This week is Thanksgiving and at our Tuesday night Devotional we are supposed to be having a General Authority coming to speak to us, so my companion and I are going to skip dinner so that we can get some good seats. I will be sending some pictures of our district and some other stuff here really soon. I hope that Justin got my letters and his birthday card I sent him. I don't know what I need for Christmas Yet but I will let you know. Please keep writing I love to hear from you. I love you all so much. Love Elder Crittenden

e-mail of November 12, 2009

Hey how is it going everyone I really love hearing from all of you it just makes my day. To answer your questions, Ben I dont have big muscles yet but I am sure working on them. Tristen yes I have been playing soccer and I love it. I am still healthy too Tristan. Thats awesome that you got to collect rocks. Keep being a good boy because I know you can be. I am excited for the snow to come too. Kailey I wish I could have been to your dance recital, but I will make sure and go to as many as I can when I get home. I love you all so much and keep sending me letters I could really use some more pictures that you could draw for me to hang up. For halloween I didnt do anything special just studied alot. My companion did know Isaac Eaton. It was way cool to send that person a Book of Mormon. I actually placed 2 more last saturday in the Referral Center. Dad Has not sent me the pictures of the kids but I am sure he will. Right Dad? That was a really funny story too That John sent me and Thanks for the Picture, tell Grandpa Hi from me. Thankyou Glenn family for the cookies, letters and pictures. I loved them. Josh I flew my paper airplane all over the halls of our dorm it flew really well. Joey I loved the booger machine and I sprayed boogers all over my companion with it. Andrew that was an awesome tornado drawing that you sent me and I hung all of your pictures up. Thanks for the cookies they were really good and everyone in my district loved them too. To tell you all about my schedule a little bit. it changes everyday but here you go. we wake up everyday at 6:30 and we have to be to class by 7, which is really difficult sometimes to get 96 elders on our floor showered in 12 showers in a half an hour. we have breakfast at 8:15 everyday. On Mondays we have Gym time right after breakfast for 50 minutes, then after gym we have about a half an hour to get showered and back to class. we have class time whenever we are not eating or at gym and we have teachers at different times each day. On everyday except Fridays which is our P-Day we are in class. On P-day its different though. We have to wake as usual, and be in class by 7 and then we have personal study for an hour, then breakfast from 8:15 to 8:45, then back to class and have companion study for an hour, then we go to the temple for however long it takes today I did sealings but I have done sessions too. The sealings were really neat and I got to see something new. After the temple we can change into p-day clothes and just write letters and do laundry or get a haircut. But I am running out of time, so I love you all very much keep writing and I will try and write some letters and answer more questions next week.

E-mail of November 6, 2009

To start off tell mom that I did write in my journal about the sunday I gave my talk so she can stop worrying about that. I did get my package and I will probably be sending back the sweatshirts when I leave. thats cool that you got a deer again this year but I am definitely going to miss deer meat. How did Wasatch do in football then? Thanks for the letter from missy it was funny. things here in the MTC have been great. Here we have a thing that we do called the RC its the referral center and anybody who has questions about our church or sees our commercials can call in and they call us here at the MTC. Well I was doing outbound calls, which is where we call the people and make sure that they recieved the things that they ordered. Well I called this lady to make sure that she had recieved her Bible that she ordered and I talked to her for a little bit and answered some questions about our church and then I asked her if she wanted a Book Of Mormon and she did so I placed my first Book of Mormon. It was amazing and I cant wait to go and try placing more.When we are in there we get mostly answering machines which is ok. We had a Devotional last Tuesday I dont know if I wrote to you about it but L. Tom Perry came and spoke to us. I really love sundays because we get to have a devotional at night and then they have movies that we get to watch. I watched the Joseph Smith movie the newest one this sunday and it was awesome. I definitely want to hear about savannahs birthday party and I sent her a card I hope that she got it. The language is coming along really well its hard to believe that I have already been here three weeks but it is a good experience. I Love you all and may the Lord bless you. Continue to Write me I love hearing from home and I will try to keep you updated as best I can. Could you send me a picture of Timpanagos because some of the guys want to see the good side of the mountain. Yes Dad my email can take attachments I will try and send home a picture of my district soon. Love Elder Crittenden